Postgraduate (PG) resident Dr Veera Prasad K was contemplating abandoning his PG General Medicine seat after being insulted by the superintendent during duty hours on January 2, Tuesday.
A medical seat is so coveted in India that last year, 2,08,898 candidates appeared for the National Eligibility Entrance Test (Postgraduate) exam. After clearing what is touted to be one of the toughest medical entrance exams, students shell out lakhs of rupees to gain admission and if they leave the seat, bond policy dictates that they will have to cough up between Rs 5 lakh to Rs 30 lakh for the same.
In such a scenario, why was the young doctor thinking about giving up his medical seat altogether?
A dejected Prasad shared with EdexLive the incident which was urging him to re-thinking his profession.
Day of incident
Narrating what happened, Prasad said that during his duty hours, a patient with left upper limb pain, radiating from the chest, visited Mahatma Gandhi Hospital (MGH), Warangal, where he was working on January 2, Tuesday.
"I advised ECG (Electrocardiogram) which was carried out. After this, the attendee was breaking the queue to approach me for further consultation. However, since the ECG was within normal limits, I had already prescribed medicines and requested the patient to wait for ten minutes to gauge if the ECG needed to be repeated, especially if the pain didn't subside."
Before Dr Prasad realised what was happening, he was being forced to speak to a politically influential person, who was on call with the attendee. But since the PG doctor had several patients to attend to, he politely declined to attend the call. After which, he was summoned to the chamber of the superintendent and lambasted for not taking the call.
"I was also personally attacked as my father's occupation was mocked," Prasad shared.
"I felt insulted with this type of attitude and pressure during my duty hours. Therefore, I decided to leave my PG seat," Prasad's statement read.
"My parents are worried that this will affect my career. They have asked me to leave my PG seat and come back to Hyderabad," he said, adding that the superintendent threatened him when it comes to his exam as well.
Upset over the insult, he left his duty and shared the incident with the Telangana Junior Doctors' Association (T-JUDA) at Kakatiya Medical College (KMC). Upon giving a written complaint to JUDA, Prasad said he received a call from the Head of the Department (HOD) Dr A Bikshapathi Rao today, January 3.
Disclosing what the HoD said, Prasad who is working at the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital (MGH), told EdexLive, "Sir said he will initiate an inquiry and chair a meeting with the assistant professors tomorrow (January 4)." Additionally, sir has asked for some time to solve the matter, Prasad said, adding that he was asked not to worry.
However, after the assurance given by HoD, Prasad seems hopeful that the matter will be sorted out. Which did happen.
Quick resolution
Today, January 4, "Principal of KMC, Dr Divvela Mohandas, called me, Dr Prasad and the superintendent to his cabin around 4 pm to discuss the matter. And the superintendent apologised for his unintentional words," informed Dr Srinath, Vice-President of State JUDA.
Giving more details on this, the affected PG student, Dr Prasad, said that the superintendent and principal assured them that such incidents would not be repeated. As the issue seems to be resolved, Prasad said he will join the duties immediately.
No apology and no pressure
"I never wanted an apology from the superintendent. All I ask is that there should be no political pressure on PGs. Today, I am bearing the brunt of this, but, tomorrow another PG may not be able to face this insult," Prasad stressed.
Dr Prasad stressed that his simple and only wish is that politics shouldn't bleed into the medical profession and that doctors should be treated with the respect they deserve.
The point to note here is that this comes at a time when we are seeing an increase in cases of verbal abuse and violence against doctors.
